Sunday, September 26, 2010

Sometimes the cows DO come home! We were very fortunate in the timing of our trip to Reidenberg, Austria. We were able to witness the traditional cow homecoming celebration (and I wish I remembered the Germany for that!).

But I get ahead of myself. We planned a 5 day trip to Austria in advance (okay, Conni planned it for us and we were very grateful). Emily, Conni, and I took the train south to Kuftstein, Austria, hopped a nausea-inducing bus for Landl, and walked 6km up the mountain from there to Reidenberg. We stayed at the Gasthaus Wastler, a small guesthouse and restaurant in this little village that Conni's family has been visiting for years.

Kufstein train station with castle above.

Landl and the sign to the Gasthaus Wastler where we would be staying... after we hiked 6km up the hill.

There were a lot of Christian icons on the roads. They didn't seem like descansos, but perhaps they were.

And I will admit right now that hiking in the Austrian Alps and staying at this guesthouse were one of the best parts of the trip to Europe for me. It was really fantastic. (I tried to move this photo down and Blogger isn't working well today, sorry.)

When Conni expressed some concern about the tennis shoes we brought to hike in in Austria, trails like this might have been what she was thinking of!

Our first day there we hiked to Ackernalm where there was a place that made cheese and buttermilk. I tried the buttermilk--it was really good. I couldn't put away a whole pint like however. The sign by this cow trough says (I believe), Park at your own risk. Risks, I suppose, include the unending cow poop, the cows propensity to rub their faces on things, and their general friendliness which you might not like extended to your vehicle.

We were so fortunate to see the the cow homecoming celebration. We hiked up the road and met the cows coming down. You could hear them for a long time as they had these huge bells on them. The traditional dress was wonderful. The woman in this photo took care of the cows up on the mountain all summer with her young daughter. As we were standing by the road watching them pass, she offered us all slugs of schnaps--homemade of course. THAT was strong stuff.

The cows are almost home.

There was some fantastic traditional dancing and a lot of yodeling--the more schnaps disappeared, the more yodeling there was.

The last day there we hiked to Buchackeralm and had this view of the alps and the valley below.

Austria was fantastic, and I only saw a little bit of it. I hope to go back some day to see more of those mountains!

Saturday, September 25, 2010

I had to make a pilgrimage to Weimar while in Germany... and Weimar is literally within hiking distance of Erfurt, so I had to go--except I took one of the marvelous German trains. I wanted to see the Bauhaus University and museum there since our project WAS about the Bauhaus. We went into the Bauhuas University building, which is currently used again by the new Bauhaus University. Conni and I wanted a photo reminiscent of the famous photo of the weaving workshop on the stairs. The stair is beautiful and we did take photos there. Unfortunately later when I was in the Bauhaus Museum I saw a postcard of the famous photo and realized that the stairs were actually in Dessau, not Weimar. We didn't make it to Dessau on this trip, so we'll have to get the Bauhaus weaving workshop photo another year.

The Bauhaus Museum was not very large, but many of the descriptions were translated into Enlgish which was helpful (considering I speak no German). I was surprised to see how different some of the objects displayed were from my mental reconstruction seeing photos in books. The famous teapots were so much smaller than I imagined--and seeing them for real, I suddenly loved them. Unfortunately the chair Gunta Stolzl wove the seat and back for that is in so many Bauhaus publications was on loan to another museum.Also unfortunate was that only Maria and Emily went into the museum with me and so I missed the gelato that was being enjoyed outside by everyone else. I guess sometimes ice cream must be sacrificed for the sake of education.Walter Gropius and I...

Friday, September 24, 2010

First of all, any country that produces a knitting magazine called Rebecca is okay with me! I did once find a copy of this in the states in English and was thrilled with the European patterns.

I love yarn.I suppose this is a good thing considering that I am a fiber artist.Shortly upon arriving in Erfurt and still hazy from jet lag, Conni took me to the yarn store.The selection of yarn was much smaller than you’d find in a store like Village Wools in Albuquerque, but the quality and prices were fantastic.A couple weeks later in Kufstein, Austria I found a ball of the exact same yarn I was currently knitting (which I paid $22.75 for in the US) for 6.5 euros.

Here I am at the yarn store (for the 4th time).

Seriously, look at this price. This is 50 grams of alpaca. 4,25 euros.

Needless to say, I visited the yarn store in Erfurt four or five times during our stay and while packing to leave I couldn’t understand why I had so much more stuff than when I left.I seemed to have filled the suitcase with yarn.

Conni and I seriously considering something knitting related...

I was knitting socks on this trip. Knitting is necessary for me when I am away from my looms. I started this sock on the train to Austria. I have never done Fair Isle and for some reason I thought that a trip in a foreign country to another foreign country was a good time to give it a go. Actually, it was a lot of fun and the chart was pretty easy to follow. (The Pepsi was the only one I had the whole trip. Germany is full of Coca-Cola and this one I found on the train to Kufstein.)

Knitting at the Gasthaus Wastler in Reidenberg, Austria.

Knitting at breakfast. Sock looks so pretty! I had some suspicions about the SIZE of the sock though. The circumference of this leg seemed awfully big. But I had gotten gauge when I swatched initially (I swatched each of the yarns separately--hmmm). But I was having fun knitting it and I plugged blindly on despite the presence of a ruler in my bag which could have been used to check the gauge much closer to the beginning of the sock.

I kept knitting and knitting. There was an unfortunate moment when we realized that we were going to have to spend the night before flying out in the Frankfurt airport. The best thing about that night was the large McDonalds french fries. Here I am knitting the foot of the sock while listening to this guy snore. It was pretty miserable. About 4 rows later I actually did measure my gauge and it was off by 2 stiches per inch. I realized then that this sock was destined to hang over a fireplace with oranges in it on Christmas morning and wasn't going to fit anyone smaller than 8 feet tall. Perhaps I'll try again with smaller needles.

***I am grateful to Kurt for not laughing right out loud at me too much when I made this mistake. I was looking for Woolite to wash some things out--the bottle was the same shape and it didn't have the word for starch on it like the other bottles I saw. Unfortunately, this particular product was to whiten your curtains. Apparently in Germany there are very specific cleaning products.

Tuesday, September 21, 2010

The German opening for Interwoven Traditions: New Mexico and Bauhaus was September 5th in Erfurt at St. Michael’s church.The show and opening was the reason I went to Germany, but I came home with so much more than I expected.I thought when I decided to do this project three years ago and ultimately go to Germany for the show that it would add something international to my resume and garner me some recognition for my tapestry.It turns out that none of that was important.

People and culture, friends and collaboration, language and communication…

The opening was different than an art opening in the US.Of course most art openings here aren’t held in buildings that are 900 years old.Michaeliskirche is a rather oddly shaped church which may at one time have been a synagogue.I believe Martin Luther preached there, and Frau Hecker showed us the slot where people put their indulgences before the Reformation (see photo below).It was cold in there and somehow that made it seem older.Gravestones that probably used to be on the floor of the church now line the walls and are set upright in the courtyard.There are so many layers of history not only in this church, but in the entire city, it is difficult for an American who has not done much traveling outside of the US to understand the accretions of time and layers of history in all the buildings in the medieval city center.The constant exposure to buildings that had been used and reused over the last thousand years and were beautifully renovated and used still today was humbling.

Our opening began at 5pm with an organ concert given by Andrea Malzahn which lasted most of an hour.As a former student of organ, I greatly enjoyed the reverberations of J.S. Bach coming from the tracker organ in the choir loft.I thought it a fantastic way to celebrate the church, the music, and the beginning of the show.The church was filled to capacity with standing room only.After the concert, Frau Hecker (the woman who takes care of events at the church and accepted our show there) gave a short speech.Conni translated for me while she was talking and I found it fitting that she was officially declaring the show “open”!It was like the concert and ceremony were an hour-long introduction of our work and now the show was ready to be seen.Conni thanked people in German and then I did so in English.Frau Hecker gave us a small gift from the city of Erfurt (hand-made chocolates!) and then we were all ready to drink champagne.

It was a beautiful evening and people stood around drinking and talking for an hour or so in the sun-streaked courtyard lined with gravestones and stone monuments.There were so many people who I did not know with various levels of English proficiency who told me how much they enjoyed the show.(I appreciated that even people who spoke very little English told me they liked it in my language.)When we were completing the hanging of the show earlier in the week there was a German woman who was touring the church.I was standing on the ladder adjusting Contemplative Garden and she looked up at me, gave me a big grin and a thumbs up and said, “Super!”And at the reception, my favorite compliment came from a 6-year-old named Leonard who does not (yet) speak English.He dragged his mom over to tell me that Contemplative Garden was his favorite piece in the entire show and that his older sister agreed with him.

There was so much love and laughter shared in those days.The friends who were there from the US and the new ones I made in Germany were all so supportive and warm-hearted.The good words from Maria Wilson who (along with her husband Quentin) attended not only our show in Albuquerque, but came to Germany to see the show there were especially important to me.Maria is a talented tapestry weaver and colcha artist whose powers of perception in many areas of life are wonderful.I also gained so much from my collaboration with Conni.Having a colleague who you can bounce some of your more unconventional ideas off of and who will tell you what she is thinking about her next project or about art in general is a great gift.We may well do another show together, so watch for us in Weimar in 2012!And it was good of James Koehler to make time in his busy schedule to come to the opening in Erfurt and to bring his work to display along with his students.

An experience like this project and international show pushes my boundaries.That is, I hope, the real definition of education.I gained a much larger (though still definitely nascent) understanding that there is an art world out there much broader than the one I have thus-far experienced in the US.I can learn other languages and about other cultures and I can benefit from the work of tapestry weavers and artists in other mediums outside the confines of my American world. (Thankfully! though there will always be much for me to learn on my home turf.)

My goal for the last few years has been to do things that broaden my world and make it bigger.This show has definitely done that.

**Due to multiple factors involving a car fair in Frankfurt, bratwurst, schnaps, Austria, bronchitis, and Thuringian newspaper reporters, I did not get a chance to return to the church and take some good photographs of the show hanging.Fortunately Cornelia is a much better photographer than I and I am sure she will share some of her photos with me and allow me to post them here soon.

Saturday, September 18, 2010

We arrived in Erfurt, Germany on Monday, August 30th. The jet lag was severe and I picked up a cold on the plane (from now on I'm flying internationally with a bag full of antibacterial wipes and I don't care if I look like a freak wiping down the seat and tray table on the airplane), so gelato was in order right away. Here I am with Conni eating my daily (sometimes twice daily!) ration. The poster on the door of the Erfurt tourism office is for our show.We hung the show on Friday September 3rd. Michaeliskirche is a beautiful building which is now close to 1000 years old. I really enjoyed hanging my tapestries in such an amazing place.Below, Conni, James, and I talk about the placement of tapestries. The woman in the salmon sweater is Frau Hecker who accepted and arranged the show for us.Germany TV did a 90 second spot on the Saturday evening news about our show. They were at the church filming us for several hours and the resulting clip looked great! (Especially because I don't speak German and don't really know what they said.)Conni had a banner made for the outside of the church. It was fun to walk around the corner and see it hanging there. We got a lot of publicity in Germany thanks to Conni's hard work.James hanging one of his Wheelmaker pieces while being filmed for the TV spot.There was a wedding in the church Friday afternoon and we had to leave for a couple hours during the hanging of the show. This is the wedding party leaving (we were waiting across the street to get back in there and finish hanging the pieces). This church is so busy with events, we had difficulty finding time to prepare for and hang the show. Finally Frau Hecker loaned us her keys so we could go in on Sunday morning when they weren't open and finish the final details.Tapestry is something that begs to be touched. As much as we'd like people to be able to do that, all the gelato and bratwurst walking around on people's hands isn't the best for the artwork. So these little signs went on the floor in front of the pieces.

James Koehler's Harmonic Oscillation series.It was a relief to get the show hung and we celebrated with more good food. And by the way, what is the etiquette regarding hanging your work next to a tombstone? (Emergence II)